Mubarak Hangs On, Opposition Calls For Million Egyptian March

Did the six decades of Egyptian military autocracy end while you slept? No, not yet. Hosni Mubarak has ordered the police back into the streets (some are apparently listening) and has apparently given “shoot to kill” orders to the nation’s army (which mostly posed for pictures and prevented mayhem over the weekend). Iranian propaganda outlet Press TV made the shoot-to-kill claims, the price of oil is shooting up due to Terrible Fear, and a very nervous bunch of high-rolling officials from all the other Arab autocracies are returning home from the Davos conference today, wondering if they need to have the servants pack up the households and escape to London. Oh, and Mubarak named his new cabinet. Things will be totally different now. Egypt has been run by its military brass since 1952. [Al Jazeera Live Stream/Bloomberg]

If you made the mistake of turning on the teevee in America over the weekend to see some news of the Egyptian revolution, you know that there was basically no news, anywhere, despite hundreds of channels, because those channels all show football and home shopping and bullshit and reruns and low-grade pornography. And then, hopefully, you threw your teevee in the “e-waste” bin and canceled the cable/satellite and called up Al Jazeera English on your Internet. Anyway, people in Canada can just watch Al Jazeera on regular teevee, because Canada is less racist and reactionary than the USA. [HuffPo]

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark E. Kelly, is still hoping to make his last flight as commander of a space shuttle in April. But there’s a backup just in case. Anyway, it is pretty much the last time Captain Kelly would ever get to pilot a shuttle — the whole program is shutting down this year — or launch into orbit again. [New York Times]

Incense Debate ate my comment about their new hit: 'Protest Like an Egyptian'. I haz a sad.

Numbat_Dundee

Revolt like an Egyptian. "protest" is for pussies.

http://www.wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

The shuttle is being replaced by an unmanned robot version (hello Skynet!) which won't cause a PR disaster when it asplodes due to shoddy engineering or poor NASA management decisions but instead provide comedic fodder for Jay Leno (which is probably one reason why Skynet wants to kill us all.)

horsedreamer_1

Heard on NPR this morning, on the way into work, that the U.S. has been speaking with the U.K., Turkey, Israel, & Saudi Arabia with respect a transition to full democracy in Egypt. Some of the Wonketteers may be shocked by this development; particularly, as the Saudis seem involved. Thing is, though, the alleged fear on the part of the House of Saud about pro-democracy violence spreading to the Arabian Peninsula is a canard. The Saudis, like their petro-cousins in Alaska, are a bit… how to say… lazy, living off their yearly petrochemical bribes & letting other people work. So, unless they could convince their Filipino man-servants to revolt for them, no chance of change in Saudi.

http://wonkette.com/ Monsieur_Grumpe

This weekend I added Al Jazeera to my Word dictionary and to my Favorites menu. See you at Gitmo!

LiveToServeYa

That's a pretty long word. Maybe you can just call it 'Al'.

DashboardBuddha

Only if I can call you Betty.

LiveToServeYa

My long lost friend!

baconzgood

Whatever you do "don't call (it) daughter"

ttommyunger

They have been on my twiiterfeed and TIVO for years, I'll save a bunk for you.

LiveToServeYa

Six decades? You're leaving out all those millennia under Pharaoh with a brief bump as a constitutional monarchy. And I'm sure Mubarak considers the Plague of the Internets to be the 11th because of that damned Moses guy. Such a nudnik!

SorosBot

Well of course Al Jazeera will never be on good old American TV; it's both run by Muslims, every one of whom is evil according to the American TV news, and it reports objectively on the facts instead of acting as propaganda for our corporate overlords. Hell, the only we we get BBC News in this area is a half-hour a week on PBS; even that's too much actual journalism for us to see.

When I lived in Buffalo, we got the Canadian channels so we could watch Al Jazeera or the wonderful news program, The Hour. Man I miss that show.

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

In Egypt, the April 6th Movement is calling on a million man / mummie march on Tuesday. Likely to celebrate Wimpy's *pay me* holiday. If yer like me and don't know 'bout the April 6th-ers, well according to God – that is the Wikipedia, they're mostly yungz. Pour les barricades, pour les barricades.

zhubajie

How come no uprising when Bush stole the 2000 election?

Oblios_Cap

We're much to indoctrinated to actually fight for our rights anymore. We might miss American Idol or a big sale at the mall.

BaldarTFlagass

Lithium in the water.

neiltheblaze

There would only have been an uprising if a liberal had stolen the election. Bush was a Real American who cleared brush for fun on his Potemkin Ranch.

SorosBot

Since when have the fat, lazy and complacent ever bothered to get off their asses enough for an uprising?

DashboardBuddha

Since when? Since a black man became president, that's when.

HuddledMass

Luckily for the Powers That Be, they/we can only waddle so far….

HempDogbane

There was a war. The Onion was the only news with the balls to cover it.

Guppy06

It obviously takes about 3 decades for stuff to percolate before the actual uprisings. Duh!

jim89048

I sure don't want to live through another "Morning in America".

Weenus299

That was indeed a trick. Had the Rove Machine driven up the popular numbers to something like 60 or 70 percent, even sheeple would have smelled a rat. The paper-thin margin of "victory" gave the Bushie win enough creedence for him to go on and destroy the world a couple of times over.

http://wonkette.com Zvi_Bleindmeis

No Twitter.

chickensmack

Wow… I've been confronted by the old buddy who wants to get drunk, and the wife that says I have too many chores to just leave the house for the evening. Boy, that was awkward.

But damn. Either be the last commander ever of the last Shuttle flight ever, or stay at home and tend the bullet wound in your wife's face.

Karma's a bastard.

DashboardBuddha

Well…unless he's his wife's primary care giver, there's not much more he can do. If I were in Gabby's shoes I'd be all, "get your ass into that spacesuit and go!"

Weenus299

Sounds like the William Conrad-narrated 1979 setup for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to me.

freakishlywrong

Let's face it; a motley band of 300 anti-Obamar teatards would've bumped Egypt right off the Big Three Cable "News" outfits. Al Jazeera does journalism, you'll never see em' on our teevees.

bureaucrap

Just FYI — Al Jazeera English is Channel 275 on Comcast DC. Don't ask me how I know that.

No clue on the program guide. The show "What a Waste!" (?) is supposed to be on now, followed by "Democracy Now!"

ttommyunger

Al Jazeera Englinsh, 1/2 Hour program, 10:30 PM EST, M-F, Ch 375 LinkTV (DirectTV) followed by Mosaic: World News from the Middle East (a compilation of translated clips from various sources, including Israeli State TV News, Dubai, Iraq, etc. etc.). Also Democracy Now at 11am M-F, same Channel. An hour of news and investigative reporting not heard elsewhere on the teevee machine.

BaldarTFlagass

I hope everything sorts itself for them Egyptian folks, but I didn't bother trying to follow things on the TV this weekend. Instead, I watched Inspector Morse DVDs all weekend. The hot chick did it! Or, the guy that was fucking the hot chick did it!

http://wonkette.com NorbertsRevenge

We in Canuckistan thought we were so cool allowing al-Jazeera but we realized our mistake too late when HNIC was replaced by HNIQ (Hockey Night in Qatar). Don't let this happen to you, America.

horsedreamer_1

Roller Hockey! Hockey… to the extreme.

GOPCrusher

Don Cherry in a keffiyeh? It's too horrible to contemplate.

jakegittes

Re: Al Jazeera's availability in the U.S. Where in the Constitution does it say we have a Free Press? Huh? Where?

x111e7thst

Starting to look like Hosni is going to manage to outlast the demonstrators. At least the last couple of weeks have decreased his chances of passing Egypt on to his useless kid, like a corner grocery store.

jim89048

It's because of the jobs-killing inheritancedeath tax, isn't it?

Weenus299

Maybe, but dye-job aside, the man is pushing 80, if not over that line. He's no spring chicken and the army thinks Gamal, son of Mubarak, is a fucking dickhead.

GregComlish

Mubarak is all but finished. He can either go the easy way, or the hard way. I hope he realizes that the best he can hope to do now is strike a deal to retire with his bank account intact. If he loosens his grip on power and gracefully transitions the country to Democracy, then he can be a great man yet.

Weenus299

From what it appears, that grip is thanks in part to Poly Grip.

PsycWench

ah, who cares about Egypt? It's not like the U.S. has any roots in a populace who was sick of dictatorial rule and finally revolted, catching said dictator by surprise.

Pragmatist2

They want a million Egyptians to show up and march?
Are we sure they aren't filming another sequel to the Mummy?

Oblios_Cap

But is Al-Jazeera reporting on Charlie Sheen's rehab location? And they say that they're real journalists!

MildMidwesterner

The last astronaut to pilot the Space Shuttle quintrupled its computing power by taking his iPhone with him.

baconzgood

A little know fact that I picked up about the protests in Egypt: It ALL started as a gay pride parade. "IT'S A FACT"

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com trampndirtdown

Well you can't argue with facts.

http://wonkette.com/ Monsieur_Grumpe

Yes, but is it a TRUE FACT?????/??/?

user-of-owls

The ultimate US response is fairly predictable. Confronted by similar situations historically, we have time and again, Democrat or Republican, followed the same script. JFK elaborated the formula very clearly when faced with the death of long-time US amigo-autocrat, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic:

“There are three possibilities in descending order of preference: a decent democratic regime, a continuation of [the pro-US dictatorship], or a Castro [communist] regime. We ought to aim at the first, but we really can’t renounce the second until we can be sure we can avoid the third.”

Substitute Ahmadinejad [Muslim radical] and bingo!

http://wonkette.com NorbertsRevenge

Actually, beaming a constant feed of low-grade pornography into the Middle East is not the single worst idea I've ever heard for draining the swamp of radicalism, etc. If this can't be done via TV, maybe there is a way to put porn on computers by now?

MildMidwesterner

The last astronaut to pilot the Space Shuttle quintrupled its computing power by carrying his iPhone with him.

http://www.wonkette.com/ FlownOver

The situation in Egypt is good news for John McCain.

Ramon X

Has Field Marshall Walnuts pronounced yet on the wrongness of Hopey's handling of the military situation in Egypt?

http://www.wonkette.com wsbloodystump

Uh…I have Al Jazeera English….I mean, I live in scary DC on the green/yellow lines, so I'm clearly not a patriot so maybe that's it?

HolyMaracas

Most people on Real Murica don't know the difference between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda. So yeah, good luck with ever getting that channel on "regular teevee."

ttommyunger

A Million Egyptians on the march? I would suggest avoiding bodies of water, the Jews are in high dudgeon over current events there. I understand they are trying to coax Moses out of retirement.

OC_Surf_Serf

Spent a few days in Cairo in the early 90's and saw some outward signs of progress and some trappings we would refer to as freedom in the 'west'.

Wouldn't, though, for a million bucks be willing to drive the official car of the OC, a Prius with a CoExIsT bumbersticker, there for a week…

SorosBot

Having spent a few days in Cairo just a few years ago, I wouldn't be willing to drive there in anything for a million bucks, even for an hour. The complete lack of traffic rules and resulting anarchy in the streets made even being driven by an experienced local cab driver kind of scary.

http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/ donner_froh

Watching Al Jazeera over the weekend it was so obvious the Egyptian soldiers on the tanks and APCs were posing for the cameras. Spit shined combat boots, sharp creases in their fatigues, helmet cocked at a jaunty angle.